18 Days: Learning the Limits

It's the weekend before I'm planning on going back to work on a daily basis. Yesterday (Saturday - 18 days post-op), I found it easy to put down my crutches for much of the day. As long as I walked in a perfectly straight line, everything seemed fine. Turns, pivots, out of the question.

That new found independence even took me to the mailbox in front of the house. I was feeling like I might be able to park the crutches forever. I imagined I might be on the dog walk this morning.

No such luck. By last night, my operative hip was hurting a ton and I was feeling pretty unsteady. By bedtime, the pain was ratcheting way up there. If the 24-hour period immediately after the surgery was the pain high-water mark of the theoretical 10, last night's and this morning's pain level was a good solid seven. Sleep was hard to come by. I took some pain medicine last evening and again around 6:45 this morning. I'm feeling a lot better now, but still unsteady. And, yes, the crutches are back.

I think this is all OK... even though it might be normal to conclude I pushed it too much yesterday. The post-surgery discharge instructions say I can put as much weight on my operative leg as I can tolerate. Well, I tolerated fine yesterday - not so much last night and this morning.

I push - it pushes back. I pull - it pulls back. I think I will stop the tug-of-war today and rest up for what I hope will be my daily return to the office tomorrow.